My Funny Plasma Mine
by jordank1230
Summary: A down-trodden, hopeless Freeside escort has his mentality altered by none other than a certain starry-eyed idealist from the Followers of the Apocalypse. (M/M, possible violence and sexual content)


(AN: Obviously I own nothing related to Fallout: New Vegas)

Ain't That A Kick in the Head?

It was quite possible that I was in fact, never intended to meet Arcade Gannon and be swept up into his unresting world of obligations and regrets. But I did, and I suppose that destiny was set into motion on the morning of my eighteenth birthday when I plopped down a bag of supplies and my ukulele case at the frame of my door and looked dryly at my parents.

"I'm leaving," I told them.

They did not encourage me to stay. Surely they knew this day was coming. The world was beckoning, I was an adult, and I had decent aim. They gave me some precautionary warnings and bid me goodbye, possibly for the last time. That was something that wastelanders seemed to know how to do: begin again, and let go.

So I walked across the sun-scorched Mojave, north through Sloan, up by McCarran, and around eastern Vegas and to Freeside's east gate. It was dusk by then, and a few flies buzzed around a streetlamp that illuminated several greasers smoking cigarettes and kicking around a tumbleweed. Once inside the metal gate, I was greeted by three tough-looking armored folks on the sidewalk.

"Hey, if you're passing through to the Strip, you might want a bodyguard," one said.

"Nah, you don't wanna be in a body-bag, hire me. I've got your back," said another.

I secured my laser pistol in its holster. "I can handle myself," I said, "Hopefully."

I walked on. There were two kids chasing a rat with baseball bats. A woman on a stoop, mumbling gibberish. Another greaser, fixing his hair in the dull reflection of a dusty window. All the while, tinny music echoed from the distance, aged saxophones drifting like the wails of ghosts over the streets. Freeside was a sorry sight.

Turning a corner onto Las Vegas Boulevard filled my eyes with a bright horizon. Signs lit up both sides of the street, and the Lucky 38 blazed like a golden torch against the darkening sky. A young girl, no older than me, stood on a corner, attempting to attract visitors to the casino down Fremont Street.

"Hungry? Thirsty? Horny? Come on down to the Atomic Wrangler!"

I did, though I was none of those three things. I was looking for a specific kind of work, one I had been hoping for all of my life. Well, most of it, anyway. A lot of it.

The inside of the Atomic Wrangler was musty, at best, and the majority of noise came from the back rooms where the blackjack and roulette tables were. A few dumpy-looking folks milled around tables in front of a dimly lit stage, clinking whiskey bottles. I was lost. I turned to an armored man in a cowboy hat leaning against the door, assuming he was security.

"Excuse me, I'm looking for James Garrett," I said.

"What do you want with him?"

"I'm looking for work."

The guard nodded his head in the direction of a suited man standing behind the bar, his hair and face drawn tightly back. He sifted through a rusty cash register with narrowed eyes, his mouth pursed into a thin line. I approached the bar.

"Mr. Garrett?"

He looked up, his brows arcing in a low point over his thin eyes.

"Welcome to the Atomic Wrangler, kid. How can I help you?"

"I heard you may be hiring entertainment."

"Maybe. What've you got?"

"I sing," I told him, "I play piano. Brought my own instrument too. It's like a guitar but like- tiny."

"We've got a piano if you can keep it in tune," James said, "You any good?"

"I would hope so," I said.

"Well, the bad news is, we can't afford to hire a singer right now. Entertainers just don't generate enough of a profit. And business is slow with the roads getting worse and the Strip sucking Freeside dry."

"So, there's no way you can give me a gig?"

James Garrett laughed. "Not unless you were willing to sleep with the customers after you sang to them, no."

I performed a quick evaluation of my options, and found that only one was viable.

"I'm not completely opposed to that," I told him.

He raised one eyebrow this time. "Hold on a sec," he told me, before ushering over the woman on the other end of the bar. She had the same tightly drawn-back features as James, and they were, quite frankly, much more becoming on him. "Francine, come here real quick."

"Yeah?" she asked. Her voice was harsh and wiry.

"This kid here came asking for a singing gig- I made a joke that we couldn't afford that unless he was willing to sleep with people too. Turns out the joke was on me, because he said he was not 'completely opposed'. What do you think?"

Francine looked me over with her thin eyes, her angular face not unlike a gecko's.

"He could sell. And if he sings, there could be a growing kind of bidding process during the show on who gets dibs for the night. I think it'd be a worthwhile investment," she said looking at no one in particular, "Tell you what, kid. You get 25 caps per performance. You get a quarter of whatever someone pays for you- so figure an average of 50 caps. In addition to that, you get a bed, food, and running water. Whatd'ya say?"

I hesitated. These people were for real. They asked an aspiring performer to whore themselves out like it was nothing, with no qualms. There was no god in Vegas, I was convinced, and it was jarring. At least back in Primm, there was a pervasive sense of decency. A sense of dignity. Here there was nothing, just caps and sex.

Yet, I had nowhere else to turn. No back-up plan. And they guaranteed a bed and food, which was enough for me. And I would be catering to a rather specific clientele- I wasn't going to be a standard-issue hooker. I'd be an acquired taste. I agreed.

"I'll do it," I said, "But- I do have one question. Suppose a client places a bid on me that I'm perhaps, shall we say, vehemently uninterested in. What then?"

"We enforce a rule that our customers not harass the escorts," Francine explained, "You don't want 'em, you don't have to take 'em. Don't be afraid to make them earn it, but also remember that your earnings depend on you shacking up with folks. So don't worry about it, uh-,"

"Tony," I said, shaking the twins' hands, "Tony Spade."

"Welcome to the Wrangler family, Tony."


End file.
